This article is misleading (full disclosure, I am French and did protest against this last Thursday)
This article talk mainly about "special pensions" from the public with privilege... For sure they will be the biggest losers and they are very vocal, but the law and the protest is about much more than that...
This reform will impact everybody, people will have to work longer, possibly to get a lower pension. Women are particularly exposed here.
Points system allows to more easily lower the value of the point... This has been done in Sweden, and former French Minister Filon told that is one main reason he likes the point system...
With this new reform, life expectancy are not taken into consideration : a manager will live longer than an industrial worker on average ; with the same share of contribution he will benefits from the system longer than "poor people" in general
People working longer means... a little bit more unemployment and more health expense for the workers (and more absenteeism for companies) as older worker have more health problem. So you save some money for retirement at the expense of other public spending...
Some economists, like Thomas Piketty are very vocal against this "law"...
Globalization has plateaued and to keep the money coming in the megacorps require austerity, which is essentially what the Gillet Jeunes and these strikes are protesting. The NYT piece is typical of the under reporting and spin put on this reality by the corporate media
"why don't you accept that people have to work longer? the population is not booming anymore so you cannot accept future generations to pay. "
Well that is a political choice. There are option possible where we don't work longer, and option where we work longer. According to the option money and worked are not shared in the same way.
Both option are possible - e.g. different economist have different personal preference.
The only think we have to is to have a debate, and a democratic decision.
Debate and a referendum would be the democratic way.
Current French Republic was dubbed "presidential monarchy" (in no other democracy a single person had this level of power)... Since 2002 French President has even more power...
And now with the extreme-right, who does not lose the first round of the presidential election (aside of extreme-right) win.
Macron had been elected by 18% of voters, and have "full powers" for 5 years
Life expectancy doesn't increase much; life expectancy in good health is decreasing, thanks to worsening work conditions.
Are you supposed to work with crutches, canes and walking frames?
In the meanwhile, during the past year the plutocrat class has seen its fortune soars immensely. This is revolting, this is a shame, and this has to stop. Now.
Eyeballing the graph, it looks like it’s growing about 10 years every 30 or 40 years. That’s fast enough to put a drain on the system to pay for a decade longer of pension for the average participant.
There is no such animal as an "average participant". For a start, a low-wage male worker has a life expectancy of 74 while his manager has a life expectancy of 84. Conveniently, the managers pension system have amassed a huge cash pile of 150 billions (that the government -- these evil bastards -- plan to snatch away instead of spending it to pay pensions for the poor and the sick).
Almost all the gains in life expectancy are due to less children dying. Life expectancy for sixty year olds has increased by a single digit number of years in the past century and is stagnating or declining in most countries.
The argument that we have to work longer because of increased life expectancy is absolutely a rip-off. People who survived to retirement are not living much longer than they were a hundred years ago.
Seems that life expectancy at age 65 has increased by about 1 year (a little over 5%) from 2008 to 2018. That 5% increase in pension coverage has to come from somewhere. It will come from reduced benefits, increased pension taxes for the working, and/or increased working times for the working.
There does appear to be some natural limit, but it does not seem that almost all gains are from a reduction in childhood mortality.
Why ?
As automation and robotization increase it seems eminently reasonable that a typical working career would be smaller (working less every week, or less years "full time")
where is this automation and robotization? because I see it only in the news and from Elon Musk who was saying 5 years ago than in 2 years self driving cars will be everywhere.
we don't even have robots that can clean a carpet properly in my house. each one of them sucks.
Uber is an example of automation and robotization: taxi company phone operator is replaced by mobile app.
Ticket machine at the train station is an another example of automation and robotization.
Online courses instead of teachers, classes and books is also an example.
Computerized air traffic control is also it.
Trains using rails more efficiently because computers instead of signals for humans is also it.
Bike and scooter rental in many cities with mobile app instead of taxis and bike renting human services is it.
Software (instead of a manager) which decides how many apples, bananas and peaches this particular grocery store needs today is automation and robotization.
And so on.
Automation and robotization doesn’t necessarily mean human-like robots doing housekeeping.
those are small examples with a few thousands job loses. they're already here and you can't see an impact in unemployment because of them. + I'm sure they actually created some jobs in IT.
I'm talking about massive job loses because of automatization. Nothing like that happened or is on the horizont.
In France, more than 60% of unemployed people over 58 stay unemployed until retirement. So pushing away the retirement date only worsen the situation. There are simply no jobs for the elderly.
Note that 35h did not applied to everyone, relabeled some paid break time as unpaid work time...
Most importantly it was "sold" by allowing companies more flexibility with the workers... gain in productivity, more pressure (and a bit of more overtime) explain why the impact on unemployment had not been massive. This is totally different than what happen with pension scheme.
If people work more years, it means more people for the same "stock" of job at first... So more unemployment at least at short and medium term.
It's two fold, there is no work AND there is no point in working. If you get unemployed at 58, you get 2 years of unemployment benefits at almost full salary (was supposed to be reduced to 18 months earlier this year). If you have side income (rental properties bought long ago since you're 58) or some undeclared work on the side, you're golden.
That's not to diminish the issue of there are no jobs, it's a real problem, but there isn't any hurry to find or accept a job either.
Bullshit. You can find official unemployment figures here : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3676628?sommaire=369693.... 35h workweek has been voted in 2000 and started enforcement in 2002. Unemployment has increased uninterruptedly between 2001 and 2005. It decreased between 2000 and 2001, but it was part of a decreasing trend that started in 1997.
SNCF (the rail company) is something like $45 Billion in debt?
Their conductors can retire using last 6 months of wages (vs avg wages)?
They can retire at 52? So payments will go to 82 (france has great life expectancy) That's 30 YEARS of pension payments!
They are guaranteed a job for life?
They get free / low cost housing?
They get 28 regular paid days off an maybe another 22 or so RTT days? (ie, 50 paid days off before any sick / unpaid etc).
Not bad!
These articles always start with a description of how hard the job is. In Europe they actually have great automated safety systems for trains and the trainsets are in good condition. I realize it's a hard job, but boy - my heart goes out to greyhound bus drivers in the US and many many other workers with no where NEAR these benefits and frankly much harder jobs.
The special pension folks are in the streets to protect their special pensions. Tie getting rid of the special pensions (which are often for the elites) with an increase to basic pension and social safety net for all?
The protest is not about SNCF - they are only part of the pic. Let's talk about the pension reform in general, not about the SNCF (with some sloppy info btw)
I was in the protest with my friend entrepreneur, tour-guide, teacher, unemployed, artist-assistant and a bartender...
Special pension is only one point of many, and there are different ways to deal with it.
Note that for some special pension people pay more on their wages every month, and that special pension was also a way to stay attractive on the employment market with low salary...
With formal youth unemployment at 20% or so, plenty of young folks would take some of these friends and family jobs and retire at 52 with a pension MUCH higher than most other french workers. There's already issues finding permanent employment in france with a temporary employment crisis.
In short, yes to all except the free housing. Don't know the exact debt number but it's massive.
I doubt get they get free housing unless they're staying away from home (long distance train drivers). Noting pensions make no distinction between tubes, long distance train or administrative personnel.
Special pensions are not for the elites, quite the opposite, it's mostly for government-related entities (including railways, education, research centers, military, energy).
Sorry - I meant elite workers! France has a three class system. Temporary workers and informal workers (sometimes terrible conditions), regular workers (state pension is not great, 50% of 25 year average), and workers with jobs that frankly ALREADY are better (railway admin jobs) AND that have the special pensions (crazy good). You could do accounting at the railway till 52 and then retire for 35 years! I love the idea - but not sure of the affordability.
The state owns and controls the SNCF, its expenses, subsidies and pricing. Its debt is meaningless, in that the government decides how much in debt it is in.
> can retire using last 6 months of wages (vs avg wages)?
Retiring based on the status and position you've reached is common in many workplaces/industries, in many countries.
> They are guaranteed a job for life?
Nobody is guaranteed a job for life. If you mean to say, that if they do their job, the company can't fire them, then I don't see a problem with that.
> They get free / low cost housing?
They don't get free houses. Maybe they get free accommodations if their shifts take them far away from home; which would be reasonable.
> They get 28 regular paid days off an maybe another 22 or so RTT days?
this is not special to railway conductors. The fact that in other countries people are being worked to the bone is the problem, not the fact that in France they aren't.
Also, RTT is a means to decrease unemployment by spreading work among more people. Saying it's excessive means essentially "let's pay the same thing to less people for more work".
Yes, the conditions are not bad; and people in the US should be inspired to organize, unionize - and not in those yellow collaborationist unions in the AFL-CIO, but in independent unions or in an IWW section, and demand decent, French-level employment conditions, at least.
> The state owns and controls the SNCF, its expenses, subsidies and pricing. Its debt is meaningless, in that the government decides how much in debt it is in.
The debt is a sign of the amount of additional subsidy needed to cover the benefits / expenses being paid. This amount (largish for France) will need to be paid by taxpayers. It is not meaningless.
> Retiring based on the status and position you've reached is common in many workplaces/industries, in many countries.
The french system normally pays based on a 25 year average pay (inflation adjusted)?Using most recent (highest paid) 6 months is not the same or standard. Can you name any other country that uses this method? Short periods like this are also prone to manipulation.
> If you mean to say, that if they do their job, the company can't fire them, then I don't see a problem with that.
The prohibition on layoffs consecutive to economic difficulties or technological changes is one of the benefits of the railway job - I'm just pointing that out. Other jobs even in france allows dismissal for economic reasons (if you offer employee modified job etc etc).
> The french system normally pays based on a 25 year average pay (inflation adjusted)?Using most recent (highest paid) 6 months is not the same or standard.
I’m not sure “normally” is the right word here. The system in France is rather complicated. SNCF workers aren’t the only ones whose pension uses the last six months of income to determine the amount of the pension payment.
Under the current system:
Private sector salaried workers receive one pension where the calculation is based on their highest earning 25 years (adjusted for inflation). The calculation also takes into account the number of years worked in the private salaried worker sector. These workers may, depending on their job, also receive a second pension where the amount received is based on total points earned over all years worked (AGIRC - ARRCO).
Public sector workers receive a pension where the calculation is based on their last six months of earnings, as well as the number of years they worked in the public sector.
Self-employed workers pay into yet a number of different systems. I’m not familiar with all them, but many are based on total points earned over the years of contribution.
Finally, it’s possible for someone who’s worked at different times as a private salaried worker, a public sector worker, and a self-employed worker, to collect pensions from all the different sources.
If you do a shorter period it's not uncommon for folks to pension spike. Do cash-outs / do bonuses for each other or temporary / activing director of positions that are empty but very high paying.
It's all "dumb". Why should a manager or an engineer get a higher salary than a warehouse employee who works his ass off all day? Why should younger workers get lower salaries than older workers just because they have less seniority? One could argue that it should be the other way around, since the younger ones are not established yet and have a lot more expenses.
The logic is that you retire with a pension corresponding to the level you've reached as an employee. It's not more or less dumb than averaging.
Here's a bit offtopic diverging from the original topic into climate change.
This situation seems to be very relevant to various arguments for tackling climate change and other environmental issues by "stopping growth". Thing is, a very large share of capital assets that "require" (i.e. expect) growth is the various types of pension funds.
Any politician that would actually implement policies that intentionally cut economic growth in order to save the planet (or any other purpose) will ensure that the math for their local retirement system can't work out any more, that some pension reform will be neccessary, admitting that the expected benefits can't be paid out because the expected growth didn't happen. And as this example shows, there will be literal riots on the streets if that's threatened.
Also, compare this to earlier gilets jaunes riots initially sparkled by a fuel tax increase, or the Chile riots sparkled by an increase in cost of public transportation.
Climate change isn't bringing large quantities of violent protesters on the streets, but requirement to make economic sacrifices definitely is. So it's naive to expect success in cutting growth and aggressively taxing fossil fuels to help climate change - the general population will not only vote against it, they will violently fight to ensure that this is not done. Any politician who's actually serious about implementing the economic changes needed to stop climate change should expect be forcibly removed from power by a large part of their population which won't (and in many cases, can't, they're the poorer part of their society) tolerate short-term economic sacrifices. It's kind of sad, I don't know what can be done about this, but at least we should be aware about this issue when discussing any proposals that are supposed to be realistic.
1. You are only talking about growth... We could also talked about how the GDP, the capital and the work is shared... You can have lower growth, but most people having more
2. Doing massive investment in favor of the climate (and against fossil fuel) would create a lot of wealth and job
3. Since the 70's they've been an augmentation in inequality, and most people live in an higher economic insecurity... The system seems unfair for most people. This is normal that people does not agree to do unfair sacrifice, while the top 20% of the people live a comfortable life... that does not means they are not ready to radical change
I'm French. I wear a gilet jaune, but that's for saving my life when I ride a bike in the night. They also protested against speed limits decrease (https://www.gouvernement.fr/les-actions-du-gouvernement/inte...), I often ride on 2-lane roads, and obviously the faster a car is, the most likely it is to kill me
Aside from that, I'm auto-entrepreneur which gives a quite low retirement, but I don't think it's a reason to go on strike. I've had tough years, but always had some good margin, being used to spend very little money
People can easily save money by changing their lifestyle, instead of asking for more money, for more unnecessary over-consumption. Those individual changes would be so beneficial for the environment and for themselves
Yes, I'm afraid various factions of the left who take this talk seriously are boxing themselves into a weird ideological straightjacket.
It might be too late for them, but most people can still come to the realization that carbon and economic growth are not inherently linked and we should be working towards removing the obstacles to that world.
This is an excellent observation, it sums up nicely some "big picture" thoughts I had myself on this topic. In fact I think it works at the individual level as well: I think climate-change skepticism/inaction comes from people who understand this consequence subconsciously. They like their cheap and easy energy, and the freedoms it brings (mobility, bigger/cheaper housing, consumerism), and they instinctively don't want to give up on anything. Cheap energy enables individualism (live far from others, self-reliant with lots of machinery and power tools, etc.) so it immediately has political ramifications.
So I won't say whose side I am on, or where I stand on social policies, but I think it is important for both sides of the aisle to realize that once you give people any sort of entitlement, it becomes exactly that an entitlement that people feel entitled to.
By so doing you make incredibly difficult if not impossible to ever introduce any changes to it later no matter what is going on, wars, natural disasters, etc. In the end short term thinking by politicians wishing to cash in on votes no matter what they are voting for will end up hurting things far more than someone who takes a long term perspective.
I bet I can guess whose side you are on and where you stand on social policies? The way you framed the situation always leaves little crumbs for others to explore.
That's the point. It is the well to do and the bosses that cry over giving the people more, allowing them to relax, allowing them to be free of the tyranny of the markets. To not give the people, meaning the majority, what they demand is profoundly anti-democratic.
> giving the people more, allowing them to relax, allowing them to be free of the tyranny of the markets
The only possible way to meet these goals sustainably is to propel economic growth. If you want people to escape "the tyranny of the market", you need more market, not less of it! Work smarter, not harder.
And France has a lot of wasted potential for GDP growth, that could be tapped by reforming all sorts of misguided government policies. There's no inherent reason why France couldn't become as wealthy as e.g. the Netherlands, or even more.
The inequality charts would beg to differ. We need redistribution. There is an army of unemployed labor and underutilized factories and other facilities. The market is profoundly irrational at allocating resources to meet human need.
With a democratically run economy, we will fully utilize the entire working population while cutting individuals some slack by reducing working hours, increasing safety, and ensuring pensions will be kept. We will do away with the unelected oligarchy that rules this planet.
We need redistribution, but we also need production, i.e. GDP growth. You can't have one without the other. (And it's damn hard to redistribute sizeable fractions of GDP without killing the golden goose. It can be done, but it's the sort of policy that has to be designed with great care.)
> The market is profoundly irrational at allocating resources to meet human need.
The market in places like France is deeply distorted by misguided government policies, many of them a product of simple corruption and misguided thinking, and not any serious attempt to remedy any market failure or promote social goals. It is "irrational" indeed, but not in the way you assume. This explains why there's so much structural unemployment and wasted and unused capital there, as you point out.
Equipment and people exist, they just are. It is the market that decides whether to open a position or to use a piece of equipment is unprofitable. The fact that the market persistently and unresolvably fails to employ everyone that wants a job or produce things that people need is a terrible flaw in the economy and is a condemnation of capitalism.
I'm pretty sure that equipment doesn't just "exist", that it takes plenty of labor to make those pieces of equipment.
Sometimes though pieces of equipment are just uneconomic given the surrounding business environment; "the market" cannot arbitrarily decide to make them profitable. Either people decide to change that business environment for the better, or some expenses will have to be written off and the business will need to move on. This shouln't be a "condemnation" of capitalism, it's a critical part of the system. Mistakes are normal, but they need to be acknowledged, and not stick around as zombies.
You’re mixing up two different things. You can have redistribution without having the government “run the economy” (which is all “democratically run economy” means).
What you say also work for corporation (and rich people) and things like tax level, tax break, regulation...
The only differences is rich people and some corporation can move to a different country (or threaten to do so), most people can't...
That explain why tax had been dramatically reduced for big corp and rich people, and not for average people
> The state would remain the main guarantor of pensions, continuing to provide workers with a safety net that is unheard-of in the United States, where about half of Americans have no access to retirement savings plans, and have little or nothing saved for retirement.
The above is OECD data, far more reliable than random assertions in the NYT.
Public and private pensions replace on average 70% of pre-retirement income for an average-income person, compared to 60% in France (and the OECD as a whole). Great Britain and Germany are even less. (And of course, because US incomes are higher to start with, US retirement income is even higher in absolute terms.
The average French pension payment is $1,500 per month, about the same as the average Social Security payment. But the average American worker gets about that much again in occupational pension. (See the break-down in the chart above, showing 100% of French pension coming from statutory pension, versus half of US pension coming from statutory pension.)
>>> The average French pension payment is $1,500 per month
For reference, French minimum wage is currently around 1200€ a month, with most workers earning around 1200-2000 because salaries are heavily index to the minimum.
It's one of the numerous issues with the pension system, pensions are comparable to full salaries.
> And of course, because US incomes are higher to start with, US retirement income is even higher in absolute terms.
On the other hand, cost of living is undoubtedly lower in France and Germany, especially healthcare. Yes, there's a government healthcare plan for seniors in the US, but IIRC it's not nearly as generous as the plans you see in western Europe.
I went on to skim the latest Pensions at a Glance [1] report from just last week, which drives your point home [2]:
> When voluntary private pensions are taken into account for the whole career in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States the average replacement, for these ten countries, is 58% for an average earner compared with 36% when only mandatory schemes are considered. The voluntary component has the largest impact on the replacement rate (more than 29 percentage points) in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Note that this is also gross (before taxes) and since tax rates are lower (in the US at least) for this cohort during retirement, most particularly by not paying into Social Security (roughly 15% of employee plus employer contributions for people making less than $120k/yr) the numbers are understated. The section on net replacement sadly doesn't include voluntary pensions.
I find it unbelievable that train drivers can retire at 52 and they are now protesting for this "right". And there are also other people who are supporting them.
I hope Macron stands by his policies and doesn't back off. I have no clue what the French people expect from their future. Don't they see that all macro variables have changed? declining population, ageing, higher life expectancy, major economic shift to Asia etc.
Most protestors don't want train driver to retire at 52... most protestors just don't want a system where everybody has to work longer, for less (despite a high rate of unemployment)...
Bear in mind that there are millions of people directly affected by the special pensions. It's really deep rooted in the French nation.
They are heavily manifesting against any change to pensions because they are first targeted and have the most to lose, but there are many more people manifesting that simply don't want to have to work longer. Nobody approaching
60 want to be told they have to work a few years more and/or receive a lower allowance.
If train drivers have their own pension system (meaning they both contribute to, and cash out from it) and they contribute so much each year that they can cash out at 57, then I can see the outrage if they suddenly need to work 10 more years.
But if the train drivers don’t contribute more than some other group but still get another ten years of retirement compared to other groups - then I’d be outraged if I was part of the other groups which effectively subsidize the luxury of a very early retirement.
That said, it’s always tricky to change old systems even when they are bad. There may be people who chose between a much better paying job and driving trains because they knew about the pension benefit etc. These types of systems may need to be phased out (e.g raise the retirement age of train drivers one year every two years).
To answer your interrogation, it's not train drivers that are funding most of their pension nowadays, it's the other tax payers that are paying.
Short summary of the French pension system is that everybody is contributing a percentage of their earning to the state. (There is no private pension fund, it's only a single giant national pool). If you're part of a few select entities (like the national railway) you simply get more benefits from the state, but you do not pay more.
The special pensions are typically in deep deficit between what their workers contribute and what they benefit back. They're only covered financially so far (by the tax payer) because pensions are ultimately a single giant pool in the national budget.
Train worker do pays "much more" every month for their special pension...
But currently this is not enough and the system is heavily subsidized... But the biggest part of this disequilibrium is that there use to be a lot of rail workers (so a lot are retiree now), and now not so much. If they had no special treatment but a separate pension system, most of the problem would be there too...
I'd disagree with "much" unless you can show numbers saying how much they pay. Noting there is a variation of up to 5% in contribution depending on personal situation (including status cadre and other stuff).
I have family working in national research centers and they contribute less than in the private sector (about 3%). Due to some historical agreement that's waving some mandatory contributions for all personnel of that institution.
My take away from this would be that it doesn't seem to allow on boarding new people and the contributions/benefits are being adjusted up/down each year over the last few years. Look like it's being shut down progressively.
I can't estimate accurately what's the final rates because it's insanely complicated, but from what I can gather they are not paying "much" more at all (maybe 1-5% all things considered and mainly because it got increased recently).
Interestingly, there is a subtle 23% line item that is supposed to cover the extra perks. It's specifically paid by the company besides the gross salary, so no it doesn't affect your salary or your disposable income.
It's as close as it gets to magic money in French accounting and that's where it gets interesting. The SNCF itself is a public organization that is in deficit every year (in part due to this; it's all circular), so it doesn't have the funds to pay this, and it eventually has to be covered by the state (the tax payers).
So much more is paid every month for this perk than for normal worker.
Note that SNCF is not in deficit every year, but generally post some profit.
Though they have a unhealthy debt burden, mainly due to enormous investment needed to create the railway network. As it is seen a public infrastructure by some their is a debate on how much of it should be supported by the state (just like the state support the road system and the airtravel)
I don't disagree that the SNCF is contributing extra (estimate 1-2B a year given 130k employees), but it's not paid by the workers, it's not taken off their salary. It is a perk and it is not taxable. Bearing in mind, the total amount even with the extra is nowhere near enough to cover the actual benefits.
2018 results say 33B in revenues, 141m in profit. I stand corrected, it's not losing money every year lately, it's about even.
82 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadThis article talk mainly about "special pensions" from the public with privilege... For sure they will be the biggest losers and they are very vocal, but the law and the protest is about much more than that...
This reform will impact everybody, people will have to work longer, possibly to get a lower pension. Women are particularly exposed here.
Points system allows to more easily lower the value of the point... This has been done in Sweden, and former French Minister Filon told that is one main reason he likes the point system...
With this new reform, life expectancy are not taken into consideration : a manager will live longer than an industrial worker on average ; with the same share of contribution he will benefits from the system longer than "poor people" in general
People working longer means... a little bit more unemployment and more health expense for the workers (and more absenteeism for companies) as older worker have more health problem. So you save some money for retirement at the expense of other public spending...
Some economists, like Thomas Piketty are very vocal against this "law"...
It is a pity the NYT did such a poor job...
Whoever doesn't have a plan B (inheritance, properties for rent) will be super fucked.
this is not proved or true. society is not as simple as that.
they thought unemployment will drop if people worked only 35h a week, but it didn't.
why don't you accept that people have to work longer? the population is not booming anymore so you cannot accept future generations to pay.
Well that is a political choice. There are option possible where we don't work longer, and option where we work longer. According to the option money and worked are not shared in the same way.
Both option are possible - e.g. different economist have different personal preference.
The only think we have to is to have a debate, and a democratic decision.
Instead of seeing who screams harder and who throws the bigger stones, lets see which politician is elected by the majority of French people.
Current French Republic was dubbed "presidential monarchy" (in no other democracy a single person had this level of power)... Since 2002 French President has even more power... And now with the extreme-right, who does not lose the first round of the presidential election (aside of extreme-right) win.
Macron had been elected by 18% of voters, and have "full powers" for 5 years
I personally don't think it is super democratic
[1]-https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/graphs-ma...
Are you supposed to work with crutches, canes and walking frames?
In the meanwhile, during the past year the plutocrat class has seen its fortune soars immensely. This is revolting, this is a shame, and this has to stop. Now.
The argument that we have to work longer because of increased life expectancy is absolutely a rip-off. People who survived to retirement are not living much longer than they were a hundred years ago.
https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/data/fran...
Seems that life expectancy at age 65 has increased by about 1 year (a little over 5%) from 2008 to 2018. That 5% increase in pension coverage has to come from somewhere. It will come from reduced benefits, increased pension taxes for the working, and/or increased working times for the working.
There does appear to be some natural limit, but it does not seem that almost all gains are from a reduction in childhood mortality.
we don't even have robots that can clean a carpet properly in my house. each one of them sucks.
Have you got a vacuum cleaner?
Ticket machine at the train station is an another example of automation and robotization.
Online courses instead of teachers, classes and books is also an example.
Computerized air traffic control is also it.
Trains using rails more efficiently because computers instead of signals for humans is also it.
Bike and scooter rental in many cities with mobile app instead of taxis and bike renting human services is it.
Software (instead of a manager) which decides how many apples, bananas and peaches this particular grocery store needs today is automation and robotization.
And so on.
Automation and robotization doesn’t necessarily mean human-like robots doing housekeeping.
I'm talking about massive job loses because of automatization. Nothing like that happened or is on the horizont.
Unemployment dropped dramatically thanks to the 35h work-week. They provably created at least 350000 jobs ( https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/les-35-h... ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#Alternatives
If people work more years, it means more people for the same "stock" of job at first... So more unemployment at least at short and medium term.
That's not to diminish the issue of there are no jobs, it's a real problem, but there isn't any hurry to find or accept a job either.
Bullshit. You can find official unemployment figures here : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3676628?sommaire=369693.... 35h workweek has been voted in 2000 and started enforcement in 2002. Unemployment has increased uninterruptedly between 2001 and 2005. It decreased between 2000 and 2001, but it was part of a decreasing trend that started in 1997.
Their conductors can retire using last 6 months of wages (vs avg wages)?
They can retire at 52? So payments will go to 82 (france has great life expectancy) That's 30 YEARS of pension payments!
They are guaranteed a job for life?
They get free / low cost housing?
They get 28 regular paid days off an maybe another 22 or so RTT days? (ie, 50 paid days off before any sick / unpaid etc).
Not bad!
These articles always start with a description of how hard the job is. In Europe they actually have great automated safety systems for trains and the trainsets are in good condition. I realize it's a hard job, but boy - my heart goes out to greyhound bus drivers in the US and many many other workers with no where NEAR these benefits and frankly much harder jobs.
The special pension folks are in the streets to protect their special pensions. Tie getting rid of the special pensions (which are often for the elites) with an increase to basic pension and social safety net for all?
Special pension is only one point of many, and there are different ways to deal with it.
Note that for some special pension people pay more on their wages every month, and that special pension was also a way to stay attractive on the employment market with low salary...
https://www.ft.com/content/119c2b4c-bc0c-11e8-94b2-17176fbf9...
There is a reason you need to be on the inside track to get these "bad" jobs - because MANY folks would like them.
I doubt get they get free housing unless they're staying away from home (long distance train drivers). Noting pensions make no distinction between tubes, long distance train or administrative personnel.
Special pensions are not for the elites, quite the opposite, it's mostly for government-related entities (including railways, education, research centers, military, energy).
The state owns and controls the SNCF, its expenses, subsidies and pricing. Its debt is meaningless, in that the government decides how much in debt it is in.
> can retire using last 6 months of wages (vs avg wages)?
Retiring based on the status and position you've reached is common in many workplaces/industries, in many countries.
> They are guaranteed a job for life?
Nobody is guaranteed a job for life. If you mean to say, that if they do their job, the company can't fire them, then I don't see a problem with that.
> They get free / low cost housing?
They don't get free houses. Maybe they get free accommodations if their shifts take them far away from home; which would be reasonable.
> They get 28 regular paid days off an maybe another 22 or so RTT days?
Read about RTT days here: https://www.e-days.com/news/france-in-focus-understanding-di...
this is not special to railway conductors. The fact that in other countries people are being worked to the bone is the problem, not the fact that in France they aren't.
Also, RTT is a means to decrease unemployment by spreading work among more people. Saying it's excessive means essentially "let's pay the same thing to less people for more work".
Yes, the conditions are not bad; and people in the US should be inspired to organize, unionize - and not in those yellow collaborationist unions in the AFL-CIO, but in independent unions or in an IWW section, and demand decent, French-level employment conditions, at least.
The debt is a sign of the amount of additional subsidy needed to cover the benefits / expenses being paid. This amount (largish for France) will need to be paid by taxpayers. It is not meaningless.
> Retiring based on the status and position you've reached is common in many workplaces/industries, in many countries.
The french system normally pays based on a 25 year average pay (inflation adjusted)?Using most recent (highest paid) 6 months is not the same or standard. Can you name any other country that uses this method? Short periods like this are also prone to manipulation.
> If you mean to say, that if they do their job, the company can't fire them, then I don't see a problem with that.
The prohibition on layoffs consecutive to economic difficulties or technological changes is one of the benefits of the railway job - I'm just pointing that out. Other jobs even in france allows dismissal for economic reasons (if you offer employee modified job etc etc).
I’m not sure “normally” is the right word here. The system in France is rather complicated. SNCF workers aren’t the only ones whose pension uses the last six months of income to determine the amount of the pension payment.
Under the current system:
Private sector salaried workers receive one pension where the calculation is based on their highest earning 25 years (adjusted for inflation). The calculation also takes into account the number of years worked in the private salaried worker sector. These workers may, depending on their job, also receive a second pension where the amount received is based on total points earned over all years worked (AGIRC - ARRCO).
Public sector workers receive a pension where the calculation is based on their last six months of earnings, as well as the number of years they worked in the public sector.
Self-employed workers pay into yet a number of different systems. I’m not familiar with all them, but many are based on total points earned over the years of contribution.
Finally, it’s possible for someone who’s worked at different times as a private salaried worker, a public sector worker, and a self-employed worker, to collect pensions from all the different sources.
It's silly everywhere it exists. Why should a last year promotion change your retirement income so much?
If you do a shorter period it's not uncommon for folks to pension spike. Do cash-outs / do bonuses for each other or temporary / activing director of positions that are empty but very high paying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_spiking
The french system may prohibit these kind of raises and promotions in the last year of employment.
The logic is that you retire with a pension corresponding to the level you've reached as an employee. It's not more or less dumb than averaging.
This situation seems to be very relevant to various arguments for tackling climate change and other environmental issues by "stopping growth". Thing is, a very large share of capital assets that "require" (i.e. expect) growth is the various types of pension funds.
Any politician that would actually implement policies that intentionally cut economic growth in order to save the planet (or any other purpose) will ensure that the math for their local retirement system can't work out any more, that some pension reform will be neccessary, admitting that the expected benefits can't be paid out because the expected growth didn't happen. And as this example shows, there will be literal riots on the streets if that's threatened.
Also, compare this to earlier gilets jaunes riots initially sparkled by a fuel tax increase, or the Chile riots sparkled by an increase in cost of public transportation.
Climate change isn't bringing large quantities of violent protesters on the streets, but requirement to make economic sacrifices definitely is. So it's naive to expect success in cutting growth and aggressively taxing fossil fuels to help climate change - the general population will not only vote against it, they will violently fight to ensure that this is not done. Any politician who's actually serious about implementing the economic changes needed to stop climate change should expect be forcibly removed from power by a large part of their population which won't (and in many cases, can't, they're the poorer part of their society) tolerate short-term economic sacrifices. It's kind of sad, I don't know what can be done about this, but at least we should be aware about this issue when discussing any proposals that are supposed to be realistic.
2. Doing massive investment in favor of the climate (and against fossil fuel) would create a lot of wealth and job
3. Since the 70's they've been an augmentation in inequality, and most people live in an higher economic insecurity... The system seems unfair for most people. This is normal that people does not agree to do unfair sacrifice, while the top 20% of the people live a comfortable life... that does not means they are not ready to radical change
I'm French. I wear a gilet jaune, but that's for saving my life when I ride a bike in the night. They also protested against speed limits decrease (https://www.gouvernement.fr/les-actions-du-gouvernement/inte...), I often ride on 2-lane roads, and obviously the faster a car is, the most likely it is to kill me
Aside from that, I'm auto-entrepreneur which gives a quite low retirement, but I don't think it's a reason to go on strike. I've had tough years, but always had some good margin, being used to spend very little money
People can easily save money by changing their lifestyle, instead of asking for more money, for more unnecessary over-consumption. Those individual changes would be so beneficial for the environment and for themselves
It might be too late for them, but most people can still come to the realization that carbon and economic growth are not inherently linked and we should be working towards removing the obstacles to that world.
The only possible way to meet these goals sustainably is to propel economic growth. If you want people to escape "the tyranny of the market", you need more market, not less of it! Work smarter, not harder.
And France has a lot of wasted potential for GDP growth, that could be tapped by reforming all sorts of misguided government policies. There's no inherent reason why France couldn't become as wealthy as e.g. the Netherlands, or even more.
With a democratically run economy, we will fully utilize the entire working population while cutting individuals some slack by reducing working hours, increasing safety, and ensuring pensions will be kept. We will do away with the unelected oligarchy that rules this planet.
> The market is profoundly irrational at allocating resources to meet human need.
The market in places like France is deeply distorted by misguided government policies, many of them a product of simple corruption and misguided thinking, and not any serious attempt to remedy any market failure or promote social goals. It is "irrational" indeed, but not in the way you assume. This explains why there's so much structural unemployment and wasted and unused capital there, as you point out.
Sometimes though pieces of equipment are just uneconomic given the surrounding business environment; "the market" cannot arbitrarily decide to make them profitable. Either people decide to change that business environment for the better, or some expenses will have to be written off and the business will need to move on. This shouln't be a "condemnation" of capitalism, it's a critical part of the system. Mistakes are normal, but they need to be acknowledged, and not stick around as zombies.
This is weasel-speak. It’s strictly true, only because it’s worded in a way to exclude Social Security. Taken as a whole, US retirement safety net is more generous than the OECD average: https://www.etk.fi/en/the-pension-system/international-compa...
The above is OECD data, far more reliable than random assertions in the NYT.
Public and private pensions replace on average 70% of pre-retirement income for an average-income person, compared to 60% in France (and the OECD as a whole). Great Britain and Germany are even less. (And of course, because US incomes are higher to start with, US retirement income is even higher in absolute terms.
The average French pension payment is $1,500 per month, about the same as the average Social Security payment. But the average American worker gets about that much again in occupational pension. (See the break-down in the chart above, showing 100% of French pension coming from statutory pension, versus half of US pension coming from statutory pension.)
For reference, French minimum wage is currently around 1200€ a month, with most workers earning around 1200-2000 because salaries are heavily index to the minimum.
It's one of the numerous issues with the pension system, pensions are comparable to full salaries.
On the other hand, cost of living is undoubtedly lower in France and Germany, especially healthcare. Yes, there's a government healthcare plan for seniors in the US, but IIRC it's not nearly as generous as the plans you see in western Europe.
I went on to skim the latest Pensions at a Glance [1] report from just last week, which drives your point home [2]:
> When voluntary private pensions are taken into account for the whole career in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States the average replacement, for these ten countries, is 58% for an average earner compared with 36% when only mandatory schemes are considered. The voluntary component has the largest impact on the replacement rate (more than 29 percentage points) in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Note that this is also gross (before taxes) and since tax rates are lower (in the US at least) for this cohort during retirement, most particularly by not paying into Social Security (roughly 15% of employee plus employer contributions for people making less than $120k/yr) the numbers are understated. The section on net replacement sadly doesn't include voluntary pensions.
[1] http://www.oecd.org/pensions/oecd-pensions-at-a-glance-19991...
[2] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/b6d3dcfc-en/1/2/5/4/ind...
I hope Macron stands by his policies and doesn't back off. I have no clue what the French people expect from their future. Don't they see that all macro variables have changed? declining population, ageing, higher life expectancy, major economic shift to Asia etc.
They are heavily manifesting against any change to pensions because they are first targeted and have the most to lose, but there are many more people manifesting that simply don't want to have to work longer. Nobody approaching 60 want to be told they have to work a few years more and/or receive a lower allowance.
Vive la liberté, l'égalité et la fraternité.
But if the train drivers don’t contribute more than some other group but still get another ten years of retirement compared to other groups - then I’d be outraged if I was part of the other groups which effectively subsidize the luxury of a very early retirement.
That said, it’s always tricky to change old systems even when they are bad. There may be people who chose between a much better paying job and driving trains because they knew about the pension benefit etc. These types of systems may need to be phased out (e.g raise the retirement age of train drivers one year every two years).
Short summary of the French pension system is that everybody is contributing a percentage of their earning to the state. (There is no private pension fund, it's only a single giant national pool). If you're part of a few select entities (like the national railway) you simply get more benefits from the state, but you do not pay more.
The special pensions are typically in deep deficit between what their workers contribute and what they benefit back. They're only covered financially so far (by the tax payer) because pensions are ultimately a single giant pool in the national budget.
Train worker do pays "much more" every month for their special pension...
But currently this is not enough and the system is heavily subsidized... But the biggest part of this disequilibrium is that there use to be a lot of rail workers (so a lot are retiree now), and now not so much. If they had no special treatment but a separate pension system, most of the problem would be there too...
I have family working in national research centers and they contribute less than in the private sector (about 3%). Due to some historical agreement that's waving some mandatory contributions for all personnel of that institution.
For rail worker: https://www.la-retraite-en-clair.fr/parcours-professionnel-r...
For "normal" workers: https://www.la-retraite-en-clair.fr/parcours-professionnel-r...
I can't estimate accurately what's the final rates because it's insanely complicated, but from what I can gather they are not paying "much" more at all (maybe 1-5% all things considered and mainly because it got increased recently).
Interestingly, there is a subtle 23% line item that is supposed to cover the extra perks. It's specifically paid by the company besides the gross salary, so no it doesn't affect your salary or your disposable income.
It's as close as it gets to magic money in French accounting and that's where it gets interesting. The SNCF itself is a public organization that is in deficit every year (in part due to this; it's all circular), so it doesn't have the funds to pay this, and it eventually has to be covered by the state (the tax payers).
Note that SNCF is not in deficit every year, but generally post some profit.
Though they have a unhealthy debt burden, mainly due to enormous investment needed to create the railway network. As it is seen a public infrastructure by some their is a debate on how much of it should be supported by the state (just like the state support the road system and the airtravel)
2018 results say 33B in revenues, 141m in profit. I stand corrected, it's not losing money every year lately, it's about even.